All About Saturn
By Natalie Chamberlain
Discovered
Nobody knows for sure when Saturn was discovered, or who discovered it. It is said to be known by the Ancient people since the time it was in existence. Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture. Pictured is Roman god of agriculture, Saturn
The Big Numbers
Length of Saturn's orbit: 886,489,415 miles (9.537x Earth's orbit size)
Saturn's Perihelion (distance at its closest from the sun): 838,741,509 miles
Saturn's Aphelion (distance at its farthest form the sun): 934,237,322 miles
The length of Saturn's year: 29.447498 Earth years, or 10,755.70 Earth days (29.447x Earth's year)
Length of Saturn's Day: o.444 Earth days, or 10.656 hours
Saturn's Mass: 568,319,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg. ( 95.161x Earth's mass!!!)
Saturn's Red Rose
The spinning vortex that is part of the north polar storm of Saturn resembles the appearance of a giant rose.
Pictured is a falsely-colored image of the Red Rose from the spacecraft Cassini
Saturn's Spring
Pictured is Spring at the north pole of Saturn
Saturn's Rings
Pictured is all of Saturn's known rings
Fun Facts about Saturn
- Saturn already has 53 currently discovered moons, and 9 additional moons waiting for their discovery to be confirmed
- Human life is nearly impossible on Saturn, for it is a gas giant, which means it has no solid surface
- Saturn has 7 rings, with gaps and divisions in between them
- The spacecraft Cassini has been exploring Saturn since 2004
- The atmosphere of Saturn is mostly made up of helium and hydrogen
- Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun
- The first moon of Saturn discovered was Titan (1655), discovered by Christiaan Huygens
- Saturn's rings are named alphabetically in order of when they were discovered
- Saturn's rings are made of millions of ice crystals, with some as small as dust specks, to as big as some houses!